It is interesting to read David Reich’s wonderful book “Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past”. He deals carefully a

It is interesting to read David Reich’s wonderful book “Who We Are and How We Got Here: Ancient DNA and the New Science of the Human Past”. He deals carefully and cautiously with the processes of human population “replacements”. So cautiously that the word “genocide” is not even in the index. But with few exceptions, when I read between his lines, I see that ugly word tacitly, time and time again. Exceptions include some Celtic migration events, but in most cases the DNA results indicate major breaks in DNA haplotypes that are consistent with an unhappy end to one group. And of course recent “sapiens” history gives us our own backyard examples—unrelenting! If you read Napolean Chagnon’s “Nobel Savages” or Polly Wiessner’s and Akii Tumu’s “Historical Vines” you can get a good=bad gut feeling for what “replacement” probably meant operationally in pre-literate cultures. Sadly not much different since the invention of Greek orthography, Gutenberg’s printing press, TV and the internet. Us versus the Other is apparently the name of the human game. If we could get everyone to absorb Richard Rorty’s pragmatic approach to a life well lived starting in grade school, now that would be real progress.